Geekiness

So, for those wondering what “Disconnected from patching server before patching completed” here’s a quick guide to figuring out what’s the problem:

As of August 11, 2017:

If you have updated to Windows 10 Fall Creator’s Update, check your App Settings. This can be done through Settings > App Settings > Apps and Features.

Change your settings if it’s set to install Store apps alone. I have temporarily enabled all apps to ensure my update works

Otherwise, check your WiFi settings.

Run the .exe as Admin after that (Right click > Run as Administrator).

Pray it works.

Have fun!

How I discovered this (aka I want to curse the idiot that is myself)
So, about 6 days after Fall of Oriath dropped, I finally decided to install the patch and PLAY. GGG (Grinding Gear Games) usually has an “Allocating Space” step before actually downloading the patch, so I went for a nap to let Kuro (le PC) do its thing. Woke up to find the update stalled so I cancelled that process and started again.

Allocated Space went through just fine. Then I had the “Disconnected from patching server before patching completed” error. This happened twice and I am now kicking myself because I decided to do the whole “delete your content.ggpk file and force the client to REDOWNLOAD the entire game (8GB and counting) in a single file” step as a solution.

You see, right after that I got an error from Windows saying “Oh this app isn’t from the store, installing it is a bad idea” and it clicked in my head that my update had probably failed because of this and not because of GGG. Unfortunately as the file has been deleted, I now needed to wait for the Updater to re-run the Allocated Space (about 45 mins minimum) AND download the game again (hello Unifi why am I getting speeds of only 200+KB?).

TL;DR: The i-Rocks Crystal USB Keyboard, also known as i-Rocks IK6, is an actually pretty decent piece of hardware, great for the sale price I got it at, but definitely not at full price.

So a few days ago I was at Digital Mall with the Bear after watching Guardians of the Galaxy. We were browsing for a cheap keyboard for me to use in the office; the keyboard on the Dell Latitude I was using drove me nuts.

As it turns out, it was Labour Day weekend, and so everyone was having a sale. We passed by Jayacom and saw people lining up like crazy. Bear and I decided to skip that queue and just go on our normal route when in Digital Mall. This means heading up to AllIT and working our way down.

When we came down an hour and a half later, I was already half-set on getting a cheap RM19 keyboard from V-tec (despite seeing an e-View at RM17 but that was mushy as hell) when I came across the Jayacom Labour Day sale.

The first thought that went through my mind was “Ah, so that was the crazy queue.” The second, of course, was to see what they have. As it turns out, they still had stock of the keyboard deals. Of the three, only one was not a keyboard bundle.

They still had 2 units left of the i-Rocks Crystal USB keyboard, aka the IK6.

I actually still had my doubts about the keyboard even after buying it, mainly because the videos about the sound was quite loud. I wasn’t sure if my colleagues were going to kill me when they heard it.

As it turns out, it’s a case of “it sounds loud on video, but is really quiet in real life.” Which it is. The i-Rocks is very soft compared to even some of the membrane keyboards I tested, but it has this really nice solid feel when typing. At the very least, the rate of errors I made during the test was far lower than it had been on the Latitude.

And in case you wanted to know what I was typing, check it out below. Note that I didn’t use the entire video, just parts of it as the OnePlus 2’s mic actually picked up the conversations in the office.

This is a rather quick typing and sound test to see how loud the key is in real life.

If you listen to a lot of videos, the iRocks, which is supposed to be mechanical, sounds really loud. However, in actual life, they are very muted. In fact, I think they are actually much more silent than even a good old Dell or Logitech rubber dome, depending on which you get.

This video was taken in my office, and I shall stop the recording now because I think that is enough for the day.

Easy Batch .wav to .mp3 conversion with Audacity

Step 1: Open Audacity. Drag and drop your files into the window. If you are going to make any changes to your music, then use the Make a copy of the files option as your import method. Otherwise, Read the files directly from the original should do the trick.

Note: you will need to select this for every file you’re importing, so I recommend doing it in small batches unless you want to spend the next 10 minutes clicking “Ok.”

Step 2: Once they’ve all been imported, select “Export Multiple.”

Step 3: This is where it gets fun. Specify your format and the bit rate. Then select Split files based on tracks. When naming files, the easiest is to Use Label/Track name.

When you click on Export, the usual metadata box will appear, and you can populate the details as needed. By the way, this is also a manual, file-by-file process, so if you have hundreds of files, you may be here a while.

And then while it converts, go and have an ice-cream or have a drink and sandwich before coming back to your new mp3 files! Many thanks to this Audacity thread for the help!

This particular error has been bugging me for quite some time. I’ve been reluctant to hard code the error away due to fear of screwing up. A few weeks ago I came across the Speed Booster Plugin and it seems to have solved my problems.

Only thing is that there’s no “list down what steps you need to activate” settings text list. It’s either having to watch their promo video or download the settings file.

So you can consider this to be a step-by-step to setting up Speed Booster with W3 Cache. I am actually considering moving away from W3 due to Yoast’s advisory, but for now this will do.

Setting Up Speed Booster With W3TC

Install both plugins.

Deactivate W3TC. Activate Speed Booster.

On your Speed Booster page, enable all plugin options under the Main General Options and Remove Junk Header Tags.

Click on the “Still Need More Speed” option.

Tick everything BUT Disable all above CSS options on mobile devices.

Scroll down, click on Save Changes.

Reactivating W3TC

Reactivate W3TC.

Under General Settings, ensure the following are ticked:

Page Cache Enabled and Disk: Enhanced

Minify is enabled > Minify mode Auto > Cache Method Disk

Browser Cache is enabled.

Verify Rewrite Rules is also ticked.

Click Save all settings and move to the next section.

Under Page Cache, ensure the following are ticked (you can experiment with which you prefer):

General: Cache Front Page and Feeds.

Purge Policy > Page Cache, ensure the Front Page, Post Page and Blog Feed are ticked, if they are not already.

Under Minify, ensure the following are ticked (everything else unticked):